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This time we were going for altitude, and we got it! The max recorded altitude was 118,533 ft! (Getting us the 16th highest altitude record on [ARHAB.org] !)

The launch site was: Strasburg VA, in a open area near the town on Rt 11, near the I-81.
Lat: 38.9968 N
Lon: 78.3508W

The path the balloon took was pretty strange, with the wind shifting between ascent and descent, and so we had a lot more driving to do than usual. The primary GPS/radio worked perfectly, and we got super-lucky with the recovery, picking up the package ~15 minutes after it hit the ground. The video camera overheated and failed before launch (booo!) and we're still working on the instrument data, but all signs point to some new and interesting results at the highest altitude we've ever run.

What challenges are left for the Spaceblimp project? Get involved: subscribe to [the Spaceblimp mailing list] and help us figure it out!

There were two radios on board the blimp that transmitted out the GPS data:

The primary radio was tied to the GPS and transmitted out to a network of amateur radio enthusiasts who then passed the location information on to get mapped here: APRS.fi. We also ran some custom software that passes this data on to a Twitter account (once per minute!) which you could follow on your phone: DC Spaceblimp Primary Twitter Feed. (Click the link in the Twitter to pull up a map!)

The secondary radio was actually a GSM cell phone module, and broadcasted its data when in range of a cell tower. It broadcasted both GPS data for tracking, and a lot of the sensor data for science. It also twittered through Society Of Robots Twitter Feed.